Chapter 43 Ransome
RANSOME
It’s late when I get to the penthouse.
Usually I would just go home after a long day.
But today, I feel like seeing Amara. I feel like having a glass of whiskey and having her call me Mr. Rozanov in a more intimate setting.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love the way she caters to me at the office.
And after a day like today, I want that special treatment at home as well.
I find the lights dim when I walk in. At first, I assume she’s asleep. But when I flip the switch, I find her sitting on the couch, legs tucked under her, a glass of red wine in her hands.
“I thought you were asleep,” I say, stripping out of my jacket.
“No. Just enjoying the quiet.”
“Hard day?” I ask, though the question seems irrelevant. She hung out with her siblings most of the day, which, if I know her (and I do), is her favorite thing to do.
“Did you go to my house?”
I reach in the cabinet and pull out a highball glass before popping the top on a bottle of aged whiskey.
“Your apartment?”. I know that’s not what she means. And guessing by the way her expression falls flat, I think it’s safe to say she knows I know that’s not what she means.
“No,” she snaps before getting off the couch and marching over to me. She’s barefoot, wearing a silky, black pajama set, and smells freshly showered. “Not my apartment. My house, where my siblings live.”
I take a sip of my whiskey. Let it hit my stomach and flood into my nerves before answering.
“Yes. I went to your old house.”
“Why?” she asks, setting her wine glass down on the counter so hard it nearly cracks.
I take another sip. “Because I wanted to see what kind of place they’re living in.”
“Why?” she presses.
“Because you care about them. Enough to check in on them constantly. Enough to pay their bills. Over half your income, the income I pay you, goes to them. And I needed to see for myself why you would give so much to them.”
“How do you know what I do with my money?” she asks with narrow eyes.
“Because I checked.”
Her eyes widen. “You looked at my bank account?!”
“I did,” I say calmly while she melts down. If I give her the opportunity, she’s going to explode. “Yes. I showed you the most secret parts of my life and I wanted to see yours. I also paid off your debts and checked on the appraisal for your apartment.”
“You can’t just sell my apartment!”
“Of all the things I just said, that’s the detail you chose to hear?” My smirk turns twisted. “You really are a brat. And I can sell your apartment because you belong to me now, which means anything you own belongs to me.”
I take a step closer and she rears up, tipping her chin in a stupidly brave gesture. “Is that so? And just how much did you try to sell my apartment for?”
“Twice what it’s worth. With some interest, mind you.”
She deflates a little. Meanwhile, I circle back to the original topic.
“I went to your house to see just what you are dealing with here. I knew you had three siblings and a deadbeat dad. But I wanted to get a real feel for just how bad it actually is.”
“And?” she asks.
“It’s bad.”
“I could have told you that.”
“And you’re giving most of yourself to support them. These people are… kids. Kids that need your money and help just to survive. They’re easy targets, and that concerns me. That’s why I paid them a visit.”
I walk around her to refill my glass,
but Amara whips around. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, easy targets?”
“I mean easy targets. If someone wanted to take advantage of them or hurt them, it wouldn’t be hard.”
Amara’s jaw unhinges in horror. “Who would want to hurt them?”
“People who want to hurt me. And by default you.”
She pales even more. For some reason, it irks me. Like she’s admitting to me that she doesn’t trust me to protect her.
“Which isn’t going to happen,” I add. “I’ll see to it that no one comes near them. But you have to do your job too. You can never be too careful in these situations. The less they know about your job the better. As far as they are concerned, you got a promotion. Nothing else.”
“I wouldn’t tell them anything else.” She crosses her arms. “I don’t even like knowing anything else.”
“Good.”
I take the whiskey like a shot and pull her against me. Her warmth radiates through my button down and her satin, reigniting the fire in me that has wanted more since I walked in the door.
I trace my thumb over her lips, tugging the bottom one. “I don’t want you to worry.”
“You promise I have nothing to worry about?” she asks.
My fingers run down her sides and lift the silky fabric that seems to just float around her curves like a halo.
“You don’t need to worry. You don’t need to think. The only thing you need to do is feel.”
“Feel what?” Her nipples are already hard, pressing into me, and I know she wants more.
“Feel this.” I slide my hand inside her satin shorts. When I realize she isn’t wearing panties, my lips sprawl into a smirk.
Good girl.
The tip of my middle finger immediately finds her clit, warm, bare, slick, soft. She moans and bites her lip, holding it in her teeth as I tease her. But I’m not ready for her to come, as much as I know that just ten seconds of rubbing her could do the trick.
Not yet. Not like this.
I run my fingers lower, tickling the entrance as she squirms in my arms. My mouth covers hers, open, teasing, ready. But I don’t kiss her. We just share breaths, inhales and exhales hot and spiked from the liquor, all swirling together intoxicating us both.
Just when her body melds into mine, I thrust my finger inside her and she cries out.
“Ransome…”
“What?” I snap.
She moans in response as I go deeper, as deep as my knuckles.
“Fuck…” she lets out.
“Yeah? Is that what you want? To be fucked?”
“Yes,” she nods, hanging onto me as if she’ll fall through the floor if she lets go.
I pull my fingers out just enough to stick another one inside and she gasps again. This time nearly all her weight falls into me.
I finger her until she is gushy, her feet dancing on the floor as I make her come. Then I pull my hand out of her shorts and lick my fingers off. Amara looks up at me, her dark eyes flecked with honey.
She wants more.
She wants me.
And I need her.
I pick her up, ready to carry her to bed. But with both of my hands gripping her thighs, I’m unarmed, giving her the opportunity to reach down and grab my cock through my pants.
“Fuck,” I bark out, taking a stumbling step forward.
But honestly, her forwardness—and the way she has a chokehold on my dick is actually erotic as fuck—is enough to bring me to my knees. Literally.
We don’t make it to the bedroom, which is a shame. It’s the perfect height for fucking her senseless. Hell, we don’t even make it to the couch.
I drop to the floor and lay her on her back.
I rip her shorts off in one tug and flip the shirt up so I can spend the next thirty seconds devouring those hard nipples of hers.
Just long enough that she wets the floor between her trembling thighs but not enough that she comes.
Although, I would put money on it that I could make her come just by sucking on her breasts.
When she can’t handle any more—and yet needs so much more—Amara reaches down and yanks my slacks open, freeing me from them. But before she can do anything else, I take her hands and pin them to the floor hard, to remind her that she’s not in charge.
Then I lower myself on top of her, still mostly clothed except for what matters, too impatient and hungry to fully strip, and I drive myself inside her.
“Jesus,” she lets out as I go clear to the base of my cock.
“Praying can’t save you, dorogoya,” I growl.
“I don’t want to be saved,” she tells me through a strangled throat, her head thrown back, her beautiful neck exposed. Her breasts still naked. Her pussy hot and exquisitely tight around me. “I want to be fucked. No redemption.”
I groan as her words bring out something dark in me. Something that’s been caged. Animalistic and deprived and hungry. Starved. For her. My hands clutch hers tighter, pinning her even further into the hard floor as my hips crash into hers.
Over and over.
Pushing. Pulling. Giving and taking.
Amara whimpers with each thrust, but in the same shaky breath begs me not to stop.
With a gun to my head I wouldn’t stop.
I can feel her tightening around me further, the inside of her growing wetter as she pulses. The need to let loose surges through me, hot and almost painful, rushing from my lower stomach to the head of my dick.
The orgasm tears through us like the beast has been unchained. We both cry out. Sweat drips from my brow onto her breasts, glistening in the moonlight pouring through the windows.
After we peel ourselves off the floor, she tugs her shorts back on and I change into a fresh pair of gym pants. We lay on the bed, me on my back on top of the blankets because I’m still hot from the workout and her under the covers, laying on her side, her unfinished wine in hand.
“Are you always this quiet after sex?” she asks.
“Do you always need to talk after sex?” I ask, my eyes closed.
“I’m a woman,” she says.
“And I’m a man,” I answer.
I don’t need to open my eyes to know she’s smiling.
“What are you thinking about?” she presses. “And don’t lie to me. I’ve made a living off of being able to read your expressions.”
I let out a heavy breath before opening my eyes and looking at her. Sure enough, she’s got a sassy smirk on those pink lips of hers.
“I was thinking about your brother,” I tell her, and her smile falters.
“What about him?” She takes a sip of wine.
“He’s working on a car.”
“He is.” She circles the tip of her finger on the rim of the glass. “He loves cars.”
“You know he plans to race it,” I state. It’s not a question.
Amara shrugs. “He’s an adrenaline junkie. Always has been. But don’t worry, he’s fast but not furious.”
I don’t laugh at her joke. This topic has a way of killing my mood. “It’s dangerous, Amara. Not just racing, which in and of itself can get the kid killed. But the people in that world.”
“Oh, trust me, I know.” She takes a sip. “Our dad used to be a cop.”
I sit up. “Your dad worked for the NYPD?”
I suddenly feel like an idiot for not knowing that. I looked him up, but only his last few jobs, which were all at liquor stores and convenience stores, plus a bowling alley at one point. I had him pegged and didn’t see a point in digging deeper.
Sloppy mistake.
“Yes. My mom hated it. He says that’s why she left. He used to be clean. Though it was so long ago I am the only one that remembers it.”
She left.
Amara’s mom didn’t die or get sick or anything like that.
She left. She left her husband and four kids, all because her husband was a cop?
It doesn’t track. Police work is dangerous, for sure, but not leave your kids dangerous.
Not unless he wasn’t a normal cop working for the normal part of the PD.
I get up.
“Where are you going?” Amara asks.
“I need to check on some work things,” I answer dryly.
“Like Apex work things or the other kind of work things?”
Without turning around, I answer, “You’re not on the clock, Miss Parker.”
Then I grab my stuff and leave.